Chief Chaffin responds to Police Commission’s questions of integrity over scathing report

Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin, like many Calgarians, says he was disturbed with what was outlined in a recent internal work review within the CPS.

The report, which is three years old but has only recently been made public, details bullying, harassment and intimidation taking place in his ranks.

There are allegations of women having pictures texted to them of another officer’s genitalia among other serious charges.

Chaffin told commissioners he’s taking this seriously but there are challenges in trying to address the culture of the force.

“The reaction to it is not unexpected, there is a reason why we released the report, this is something we’ve been dealing with for a few years now,” said Chaffin.

“When I was the deputy in charge of H.R., we started this work on purpose. We actually wanted to look into the organization and find out what’s going on. We worked with our academic partners to learn what was going on and over time as this issue rolls up again, it’s time to make this report public so people can see it and ask us questions.”

Calgary’s top cop admits there are issues.

“I believe in this organization. It’s doing well. It’s a good place to work and a thoughtful place to work but the question that we would ask is how many employees have to have a bad experience before it’s a problem and it’s like I was saying today, one employee is too many.”

Chaffin says it’s on him and his senior management to find out why there is a hesitation to come forward.

He wonders if they’ve brought some of the “old boys club” culture with them, unintentionally creating barriers for some people.

The chief says the difficult thing to change is the culture and he’s looking for his team to address it.

“I’ve made as many outreaches as I can to come forward (to the female officers): come forward to me, come forward to whoever it is you think you can raise your voice to,” he said. “You cannot address problems or fix things, getting to the root of things, if you don’t have information.”

“If it’s something about the behaviour of people, I can address it if I know what to address. If it’s something serious like pictures of genitalia that has to be addressed.”

Chaffin says releasing the report was important for the sake of transparency.

“What takes time is you have to know what you’re fixing,” he said. “The real issue is not the women, it’s the behaviour within the organization.”

They’ve been working with the University of Calgary, asking them to educate the senior management and give the force a second look as to what needs to change.

“It is serious and there isn’t a day that we don’t work on this. There’s no silver bullet. It’s about understanding it every day and working through those issues.”